Photo courtesy of Chabad.org
A WEEKLY TORAH THOUGHT BY RABBI MORDY
This week’s Parsha – or double Parsha as it is both Matos and Massei – concludes the book of Bamidbar, Numbers. This ends the first four books of the Torah; the fifth book, Devarim, begins next week and is written very much from Moses’s perspective. Part of the preparation for this shift in content and context is this week’s episode concerning two and a half tribes (not to be confused with Two and a Half Men) who request permission from Moses to reside outside the borders of the Land of Israel, across the Jordan River as it was. There is much back and forth between them as initially Moses objects. After all, his life’s mission was to bring the Jewish people into Israel and, while he himself was unable to enter, at least the knowledge that they would be going after his lifetime was a source of comfort to him. Thus his response to them: Justify your reasoning, and that it not be to simply remain separate. They go back and forth a bit and one of the objections Moses gives is a lesson for all time: “Your brothers go into battle and you will sit here?”
This has been a rough week in our community. There have been tragedies before but somehow, when another strikes our young people, it brings it all back. Fortunately, there is a lesson in this episode for this moment.
What is Moses telling them? That it’s easy to “feel bad” for someone else, especially in a world where we can always send our “thoughts and prayers,” but it’s another entirely to truly empathize with someone. What can we actually do? How would we react and what would we want if we were in their predicament? Of course, by remaining in this side of the Jordan, so to speak, we will like their “battle” on Facebook and perhaps even share their posts, but will we roll up your sleeves and get dirty with them? Will we empathize with them, will we really feel for them in a way that’s personal? That is Moses’s challenge for all generations and one we should think about certainly at a time like this, a time of mourning, but in life in general.
Starting on Sunday, the Nine Days leading up to Tisha B’Av remind us of the holiness and wholesomeness we are missing without a Temple in Jerusalem. The way to rebuild it, physically and spiritually, is through feeling and acting as one with others. Because we really are all part of the Oneness of creation. May we all make an added effort to act in ways that truly reveal this! Good Shabbos!
